Everyone has made a bad decision or two, decisions that can shape the course of their lives. Whether it’s investing in a company that goes bankrupt or saying the wrong thing in an interview for a desired job, those decisions can have a huge impact on a person’s entire life, says Dr. Alan Ehler, dean of the Barnett College of Ministry and Theology at Southeastern University.
In today’s chaotic culture, Ehler says, poor decisions can be more costly than ever for the believer. A great deal is at stake.
“We don’t get to create everything that happens to us, but we can shape it by our decisions,” Ehler told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “Really, there are four steps that can be followed to make any kind of decision in your life, whether it’s personal, professional or relational.
“First, your life is a story, and your story begins the day you were born. You must understand your own backstory, and second, you then need to catch God’s story and see if Scripture speaks clearly to your issue to give us some principles that we can apply. It’s the Holy Spirit speaking to us.
“The third step is to craft a new story. If we know we have heard from God, we still have to figure out, am I going to live this out? The fourth and final step is to tell the new story that is letting everybody know who is going to need to know how to do it, and then we go live it out after we make the decision. And then, if it’s an ongoing decision with ongoing ramifications, we want to assess that we’re evaluating the right decision. Is this the best way, or can we fix some things here?”
For more about making the right Spirit-led decisions for your life, listen to the entire podcast.
Curt Landry 
Michael L. Brown 
Rabbi Eric Tokajer